In a week in which President Obama took to swing state college campuses to push his message about student loan reform, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and DNC Vice Chair Mike Honda Thursday pounded the issue here in solidly-blue California.

“Here in California, the issue couldn’t be riper,” Miguel Santiago, president of Los Angeles Community College board, told reporters on the call. “As the costs of attending UC’s continue to rise…we see first hand the effects of budget cuts on our community colleges.”

Wasserman Schultz called making education and student loans affordable “one of the most important issues facing our nation.”
And she said “young voters..face a clear choice” between Obama — with his record of strong support for education and student loan reform — and “a candidate who’s only given lip service to young Americans,” whose budget would slash the Pell Grant program and other programs that make college affordable.

“Even worse, the Romney-Ryan budget would cut taxes for millionaires,” while severly impacting students, she said.
She said Republicans in Congress Thursday have shown they are determined to “cut health care” for women, including breast and cervical cancer screening and child immunization to pay for the adjustments in student loan rates.

“They can’t run from the fact that they continue to protect big oil and their subsidies..(and) tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires,” she said.

Honda’s take: “Right now, the American dream is being threatened” with the spike in student loan interest rates that would affect half a million students in California alone. “That is simply unacceptable,” he said.

But Republicans countered Thursday that Democrats are hiding from the real issue when it comes to younger votes — that Obama has failed them on jobs.

“After two days of campaigning on college campuses, it’s clear that enthusiasm for President Obama is down sharply among young Americans,” said Amanda Henneberg, a Romney campaign spokesperson, in an email press release released Thursday. “With one of every two recent college graduates unemployed or underemployed, President Obama won’t be able to skate by on empty rhetoric and campaign promises. He’ll have to run on his failed record of high unemployment, skyrocketing gas prices, and mountains of new debt.”

GOPers cited stats reported by the Associated Press indicating that “about 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.”

We asked Wasserman Schultz to respond: “I can understand why they’d want to deflect,” she said of the GOP. “They have no interest in standing up and protecting the middle class and working families.”

Expect to see the issue of student loans continue to be a focus as both Reps and Dems battle for the all-important “Millenial” generation voters from now until November — especially in California.